With tenderness and aplomb in equal measure, these essays plumb the depths of paternal relations.
Fathers are the lodestone of this varied anthology, which circles them brilliantly.
In this much-anticipated follow-up to the acclaimed What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About, writer and editor Filgate prompts 15 esteemed writers to reflect on their fathers. The resulting essays offer a diverse spread, reflecting the panoply of relationships it’s possible to have with that key figure. In Jiordan Castle’s essay, she grapples with finding personal freedom from her father after he is reincarcerated. Susan Muaddi Darraj explores the duty-bound role of the eldest immigrant daughter alongside similar burdens placed on her father. In “The Son,” Robin Reif reveals her desire to receive the status of a son within her patriarchal family and the complicated position her brother occupied as recipient of that coveted mantle. “Roots & Rhizomes” sees Kelly McMasters using the natural world to understand her father—“We’ve probably spoken more about plants than any other topic during our nearly fifty years sharing this planet.” Jaquira Díaz seeks to understand the gaps in her father’s life story while occupying the same city her father once spent a mysterious summer in. In “A Storybook Childhood,” Joanna Rakoff reckons with a father who expounded at length about his and her mother’s lives—some of which was true. Andrew Altschul surveys his father with newfound perspective as a father himself. Tomás Q. Morín takes the game of Operation as a tool to reach toward all pieces of his father. Heather Sellers and Julie Buntin speak with bracing honesty about reconnecting after paternal estrangement. Isle McElroy and Maurice Carlos Ruffin occupy the workspaces with their fathers. Alex Marzano-Lesnevich encounters the shifting power dynamic of aging. Dylan Landis returns from the first anthology to face her psychoanalyst father, and Nayomi Munaweera is back, looking at her parents’ arranged marriage from the paternal side. Throughout, the essays are marked with love, honesty, and exquisite writing.
With tenderness and aplomb in equal measure, these essays plumb the depths of paternal relations.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781668049655
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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